Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Take the hint.

Do you ever have one of those moments where you are going about your day to day and all of a sudden think *OMGosh I really want pizza. And suddenly whenever you pull up Instagram, or open the newspaper. Hear a radio commercial or see a billboard...it's all about pizza. People eating pizza, recipes for pizza, a new pizza restaurant opening in town, coupons for cheap pizza, the list goes on.And you think, huh. Well that's interesting. Maybe it's a sign I should get pizza. And the more you talk about it, the more you think about it all, the more pizza surrounds you. Then! You spread the circle a little bigger. You start telling your friends, your boyfriend, your coworkers, your family how much you are craving pizza. They all chime in with how good it sounds, too and Yeah you should really go get some! The next thing you know, your evening plans are rearranged and bam! you are eating pizza.

I'm not just talking pizza here { though man, now pizza sounds so good }. It could be a green juice that you've been craving or wanting a sign to buy that scarf you've had your eye on…maybe you need to see some motivation to start a new daunting craft project, or pulling the plug on buying a new sofa. Maybe it's even something as big as pursuing that new job and new lifestyle that you've been lusting after for far too long. Whatever it is, the point here is that once the thought of buying that thing, or changing that other thing creeps into your mind…it follows you everywhere.

For over a year now, I've been approached by a local Steamboat business manager { who happens to be not just a good friend, but a good family friend of the Maddoxs' } trying to get me to come on board and work for her/with her. The job she was propositioning me for was my dream job in so many ways. It would open up so much more flexibility in my schedule, the opportunity for new avenues in which to express creativity, ways to push myself both mentally and physically and all around a beautiful chance for growth in my life.

But I was scared to make a change.

Lord have mercy was I scared! So scared that I ignored her requests for 12+ months. I buckled down and kept on keeping on at my { how I now affectionally refer to it as my } 9a-5p, Monday-Friday, cubical bound, florescent light lit job. And it was ok! Really, things were truckling along and things were fine. I started out in sales with some pretty sad numbers both in $$ booked and $$ in my bank account. But I kept trying. I kept working, I kept scheduling meetings with my clients. I kept showing up to work knowing I could push my monthly %'s booked and! I can confidently say that I grew my territory { and for what it's worth, my bank account too }. But seeing those growth in numbers did nothing to make me more excited about my job. It didn't make me want to work any harder to see how much higher I could grow those numbers and it didn't make me want to work any less. I struggled with finding fulfillment with my job and always settled that argument with myself by saying "But I really enjoy my coworkers, I really enjoy working with { most of } my clients so it's ok if I'm not 100% fulfilled." Until I realized that it really wasn't ok.

Of course here in the blog world there are 1,000,000,001 real life examples of people chasing their dreams. Finding their ideal job! Ditching the monotony of a desk job and chasing their passions. Reading their stories used make me angry. "How can you just do that? How can you quit a steady paycheck and health insurance to open an online craft store/photography business/coffee shop { etcetcetc } and support yourself?!?!?!" These stories made me angry until once day they didn't. And I very timidly started putting myself in their shoes. I started asking myself small questions of "What if I did quit my day job? What would my day to day that look like? How much would my quality of life change? What would I even want to do?" Of course I lucked out and found the most supportive partner who genuinely believes in me, sees talents I possess that I'm sometimes blind to and can recognize when one area of my life is causing so very much inner turmoil. He helped me answer these little questions and he supported me when the biggest questions surfaced.

Even with these little and big questions asked and answered, I was still scared. I was scared of disappointing my current employer. I was scared of not being able to fill the shoes of this new job. I was scared financially and truthfully, I was scared of how I would respond with freedom in my work schedule. Even with all these lurking thoughts of doubt, there was one thing that remained; the unstoppable daydream of taking the leap to make this big change. What remained was every time I would hop on Pinterest for a few minutes, half a dozen images similar to the ones in this blog post hit me square in the face. What remained was that one voice that said "Beth, you can do this." that drowned out all the other voices that were saying "Stay comfortable. Don't make the change."

These quotes littered throughout this post are some examples of what I would see time and time again. These quotes are my example of pizza in the above paragraph. I knew that I could only ignore them for so long until I had to stop ignoring all the signs and it was time take the hint.

Ya'll know me enough by now to know that I'll have to split this up into like 3 posts with my chronic over thinking/analyzing. Thoughts and updates to continue in the upcoming days.

*To drive this point home even further, I want to say that I've had 3 pizza related things happen to me / come up in conversation just in the few short hours it's taken me to start writing this post. It is all very Law of Attraction of you, Universe.

1 comment:

I am so proud and excited to see and hear about this major change in your life. It is so encouraging and inspiring to take that leap towards self-fulfillment and happiness. I know this is going to be an incredible move for you and I cannot wait to see what the future unfolds. Congrats friend!